Joao Silva Being Treated at Washington Army Hospital

Joao Silva, the New York Times contract photographer who was severely wounded when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan on October 23, has undergone “repeated operations” at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC , according to his long-time friend and former collaborator Greg Marinovich. Marinovich has reported that the South Africa-based Silva “lost the lower part of both legs” while embedded with a US infantry unit in Kandahar Province. Silva, accompanied by his wife, Viv, was flown to Walter Reed on October 29 from the US military hospital at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Michele McNally, assistant managing editor for photography at The New York Times and David Furst, the paper’s international picture editor, visited Silva after he arrived at Walter Reed. “He’s a very strong man,” McNally says of Silva. She tells PDN his spirits were good during the visit. When she offered him a drink of water, Silva said he would prefer a beer.

The fund that Marinovich established to collect donations for Silva and his family through the Web site www.storytaxi.com has so far raised over 4,000 Euros. (The site is run by Hekaya Digital Storytelling, a non-profit organization.) Marinovich says he is also organizing a fundraising dinner and auction, and adds that Photoshelter has offered a dedicated web site for licensing Silva’s images which will be live soon can now be seen at joaosilva.photoshelter.com

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